ES Reporter

ITANAGAR, Aug 10: Taking strong exception to the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) 2020 released recently by the Central government, various NGOs of the state under the umbrella of “Fridays for Future-Arunachal” on Monday raised their voices demanding its immediate withdrawal.
Speaking on the occasion, social activist Jarjum Ete while pointing out several flaws in the draft which can be detrimental to the environment of Arunachal Pradesh said: “EIA 2020 draft will be worse than the Hiroshima-Nagasaki atom bomb attacks, especially for a tribal state like Arunachal. The Statehood Day Act does not protect our rights on our own natural resources as well and we all know that the state is not protected under the 6th Schedule, which means our resources actually do not belong to us and the EIA will add to the adversities.”
 “Our state’s educated youths lack interest in knowing the policies and provisions of the constitution of various government acts which actually administer the state and one of those is the EIA 2020,” Ete added while appealing the state’s youths and CBOs to join the movement against it.
Elaborating on the draft proposals, Chairperson-Youth Mission for Clean River, Advocate SD Loda said the EIA 2020 draft notification directly contradicts the basic precautionary principles espoused in EIA 2006 and legitimizes post-facto clearance, which means that even projects without environment clearance can continue indefinitely. He also contended that the EIA 2020 draft undermines the 2006 version by disempowering citizens through robbing them of the reasonable opportunity of participating in public hearings before commencement of various types of projects ranging from B2 ones and those concerning national defence or security, thus allowing rooms for sweeping opacity. “The power to officially report environmental violations in projects has been given only to the project developers and government authorities, leaving little or no scope for the directly-affected communities to make representations,” he added.
“It is sad the Union Ministry of Environment has to be reminded of the guaranteed provisions enshrined in Article 51(g) of the Constitution of India which clearly enumerates that ‘It shall be the fundamental duty of every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment and have compassion for living creatures’,” Loda stated while appealing the citizens of the state to use the email-eia2020-moefcc@gov.in to press forward the demand for withdrawal of EIA 2020.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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